A Closer Look at Hal Chase’s Three T205 Baseball Cards

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Pre-War Cards

Hal Chase has three cards in the T205 set — here’s a look at all of them

While the T205 baseball card set is similar to T206 in that many players have more than one card, it doesn’t have quite the extreme of variations. A large part of that, of course, is that the set is less than half the size of T206.

Still, many players do indeed have more than one card and one of those is star Hal Chase.

Chase and variations in tobacco card sets are nothing new. After all, his five cards in the T206 set are the most of any player. And in the T205 set, Chase has three cards.

Only two were intended — Chase has one card where he is facing forward and a second with his head turned to the side Those sorts of minor variants were found on cards for several other players. Chase’s third card also shows him facing forward. However, it was likely produced to correct an error that occurred on earlier cards.

Players in the American League, like Chase, featured headshots against a baseball field background. The ‘error’ card of Chase shows the first and third baselines extending down past his shoulders. The result is a fairly ugly look with the baselines printed right over top of his shoulders.

It doesn’t look hideous, I suppose. However, when you compare it to the corrected card, you see that the updated card is simply much cleaner.

Shown here are the two cards with the error on the left and the corrected card on the right. The card on the right, as you can see, places the baseline correctly behind his image.

So how are the three cards treated with regard to value? All, of course, are valued significantly above a common level because Chase was a legitimate star. Some, in fact, feel he would be a Hall of Famer if not for the gambling issues surrounding his career. As a result, his cards are often priced as if he was in that exclusive group.

But the least expensive of the trio is the ‘error’ card with the baseline extending. The card is the most populous one (PSA has graded nearly 200 of them) and is usually the one you can expect to see the most. In decent low-grade condition, that card usually starts around $50-$100, similar to cards of lower-end Hall of Famers.

The corrected version of that card has been graded about 150 times by PSA and is a bit harder to find. But the prices are quite similar, despite that slight edge in rarity. Knowledgeable dealers will likely ask for a little more comparing it to the error card in similar condition.

The side version of Chase is the one that typically sells for the most. It is the rarest of the three and that is confirmed somewhat in PSA’s population reports with only about 120 graded. In low-grade condition, that card typically starts in the $75-$125 range.